Rationale and Research Questions

Scientists at Mystic Aquarium maintain data on marine mammal and sea turtle strandings as a means of monitoring the behavior and health of these animals, always vigilant for changes in patterns that might signal an unusual event such as a viral outbreak or a toxic algal bloom. The condition of these animals reveals much about the health of our oceans.

Marine animal and sea turtle strandings can be an unusual event or indicator of the health of our oceans. Seeing patterns in the strandings of marine mammals and sea turtles can be indicative of issues that may not be transparent. Some example of these issues could be viral outbreaks or toxic algal blooms. Because humans have a close knit relationship with the ocean,

Being able to monitor these populations

-heath impacts on humans –> it something is harming animals, will it harm us when we consume seafood -monitor over the years to see if there were any trends on increases in strandings

Contains clear context for research topic
Contains rationale for dataset of choice
Contains one or more questions of an appropriate scope for the project

Dataset Information

Describes source and content of data
Details the wrangling process from raw to processed data
Contains a table summarizing the dataset structure

Mystic Aquarium’s marine mammal and sea turtle stranding data 1976-2011 -contains whales, dolphins, and sea turtles -number of different species in each family -datum WGS:1984 -transforming to UTM –> 18 (32619) or 19 () -coordinate system: -raw data -output table –> take from data_wrangling file

Exploratory Analysis

Flow between text and visualizations is cohesive
Relevant exploratory information is visualized

Analysis

Flow between text and visualizations is cohesive
Visualizations and statistical tests pertain directly to specific questions
Statistical results are reported in plain language with relevant statistical output in parentheses
Findings are reported clearly in relation to research questions

Pinnipeds:

Question 1: Are there years where the number of pinniped strandings are significantly different?

Question 2: Are there trends in pinniped strandings based off of this dataset?

Whales:

Question 1: <insert specific question here and add additional subsections for additional questions below, if needed>

Turtles:

Question 1: <insert specific question here and add additional subsections for additional questions below, if needed>

Summary and Conclusions

Major findings are summarized
Conclusions relate back to the original research context

$Deceased Fin Whale - Joshua Meza-Fidalgo, 2020$

Deceased Fin Whale - Joshua Meza-Fidalgo, 2020

References

Data: https://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/945

Halpin, P.N., A.J. Read, E. Fujioka, B.D. Best, B. Donnelly, L.J. Hazen, C. Kot, K. Urian, E. LaBrecque, A. Dimatteo, J. Cleary, C. Good, L.B. Crowder, and K.D. Hyrenbach. 2009. OBIS-SEAMAP: The world data center for marine mammal, sea bird, and sea turtle distributions. Oceanography. 22(2):104-115.
Smith, A. 2014. Mystic Aquarium’s marine mammal and sea turtle stranding data 1976-2011. Data downloaded from OBIS-SEAMAP (http://seamap.env.duke.edu/dataset/945) on 2022-04-02.

Photos: Special thanks to Joshua Meza-Fidalgo for providing whale photos for us to use.

Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Stranding Analysis